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Perspective and Opinion

What are friends for? Seriously. In recent months, I catch myself not living up to what I expect of my friends and that makes me wonder whether I’m making mistakes in choosing my friends or are my friends making a mistake in choosing me. The first part of this question is what are friends for.

I used to think friends were there to talk with and to help you understand your own life, but now I’m not sure. I’ve realized that people, myself included, subconsciously try to surround themselves with friends who will back them up, even when wrong. When you tell your friends something about a situation not involving them, you’re most likely going to get “you’re totally right” reply because you’ve told the story from your perspective and they want to make you feel better. Being right always makes people feel better.

The problem is the harm this does. I can think of two or three situations where I know my actions or interpretations of things were wrong, but my friends still backed me up. While this was nice at first, those situations only got worse because I was deceiving myself, thanks in part, but not mostly, to my friends.

It’s only so far removed from it that I realize that of all the advice I’ve gotten, the most honest and helpful, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, was from my parents. Perhaps I should stop looking for support, like so many of us come to rely on, and start accepting that I’m neither as great or as horrible as I’d like to believe. I can certainly find people to tell me what I want to hear, but, strangely enough, I don’t want to hear what I should want to hear.

I always believed I had friends who were honest and open and caring, but the more I think about it, the rarer it’s been that I’ve had friends with all three traits. And every time I reevaluate a friendship, I seem to find that all the problems trace back to having a perspective and therefore having an opinion and an influence over others opinions.

I am the RPG

I’ve been thinking that people take life too seriously. Sure, there are serious matters that everyone has to deal with, but why waste your time and happiness on being serious. For the most part, happiness is the most important thing to me. Not just my happiness, but that of everyone. So many people think, “I’m above the dirty work,” but without someone doing the dirty work, we couldn’t live like we do.

People complain to me about all sorts of things and I try my best to help. It’s when I do help, and I put a smile on their face, that I feel I truly succeed. It’s almost like a video game, except better. You sit down and take on a role and work your way past all sorts of obstacles, failing and succeeding. The more advanced technology gets, the better the games will get at simulating reality, and eventually we may end up voluntarily entering Matrix like worlds. Of course, the other option, is to take the mundane path and actually live a life you may not be happy with.

I think that D&D helps people succeed. When you play an RPG, you’re in for the long haul. You may have slighly more leeway with what’s possible, but you’re that character and it’s out of your hands. When kids play non-video game RPGs, they learn how it is in the real world: you don’t always get your way; you need to work hard to succeed; there are repercussions to every decision. This pays off in the long haul. Think of all the rich and powerful nerds and geeks… it makes me wanna go back and try to play RPGs instead of sports.